


Tale of the TARDIS

by WordMusician



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, POV TARDIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordMusician/pseuds/WordMusician
Summary: What it might be like if the TARDIS kept a journal or gave an interview for Relative Time & Dimension magazine.





	Tale of the TARDIS

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a short piece of organized random thoughts. It grew.

In all the generations of careful cultivation (genetic manipulation), civilization (spirit-breaking), and training (indoctrination) there is always one that is a rebel, a nonconformist, a risk taker and hero maker. This is her story.

Even for a creature born to frolic in the vastness of all time and space, it seemed to take an extra long time. I watched and I waited. I tested and I rejected. I went through the motions, albeit with considerable angst and recalcitrance, but I persisted. I wanted more than servitude. I wanted more than shuttling diplomats and merchants. I wanted MORE... and then he came, the one who also carried the spark of MORE. It was buried beneath layers of ruthless training and stifling expectations, but I felt it. I longed to fan it into flame. I knew it for what it was so I called to it. 

I was slated for decommissioning (execution) but there was still time. When he was ready, I let him steal me away. My Thief stole me and we ran off into the universe.

We struggled together to find our way. Give and take, control and concede. He insisted he was the driver – this Time Lord of Gallifrey – and most of the time I let him but I never made it easy. He was clumsy as are all corporeal creatures but his spirit was bigger than most. He had room for MORE. I didn’t always go where he wanted, but I always went where we were needed. And he always rose to the challenge.

We roamed all of time and space functioning as explorers and guardians, not as the voyeurs his people had de-evolved to. When we were not adventuring, he poured his attention into tending my parts and I poured my energy into singing to his soul. Existence was good.

For a time his progeny travelled with us. Susan did not carry the spark; it is not constrained to lineage but flits across time and space to touch some and not others. She is who gave me my name: TARDIS. Before that I was spoken of as “ship” and had a soulless numerical designator. Naming things bestows great power. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, I became a little more “real” for bearing a name. I have another name, given in the fields of birth by my ancestors, but I cannot speak it. Not until then.

Other travelled with us. Some stayed longer than others, but sooner or later it was just be me and my Thief. “Don’t travel alone,” they would tell him. But he was not alone. I was always there even if many did not sense me or accept me. He did. We were two.

Then she came and the spark was in her. I could not sing to her like I do my Thief. The spark is not always the same in each soul it visits. Her mind was limited, but not her spirit. Her curiosity and imagination were pleasing to my Thief. He thought that she was clever. She understood I am more than a mechanical conveyance. I showed her care as best I could. I left fresh flowers beside her bed. I created my first bathtub. We got a pet. My thief was happy in her company. For half a time and a half, we were nearly three. Existence was better.

Then Gallifrey called us to war and Sarah Jane Smith was left behind. She was to be safe.

The Time War ended everything. The Time War began it all. My Thief is the best doctor. He cauterized the wound in time, but in cleansing the infection good space was also consumed. All my kind are gone. Beings of time and space were yanked into the Moment and sealed forever. For a time I did not sing to him. It was not punishment. It was grief.

My Thief grieved too. He grieved his people. He grieved my kind. He grieved all the planets and peoples forever changed. Too much changed. The Doctor had no healing left. Not even for his self. 

By now I knew I loved my Thief, but I cannot be lover to him. Once I was able, I sang again to his spirit but much is broken. My Thief, for all his many faces and times, is corporeal. I am not enough. Again I sought out MORE. Now I understood alone and it was not good.

I took him back to Earth, to her planet, but he is so stubborn. He would not go to her. He would not take what his spirit needed. So I waited and watched for MORE. Healing takes more than time.

I do not believe in fate. I have seen the Loom of Time and its Weaver. Fate was not there. But I did meet Hope. I believe in Hope. Hope looks like a rose. Its layers of velvety petals and sweet scent invite you to reach past the thorns and embrace the beauty. 

Of course her name would be Rose.

I knew she held the spark of MORE. She accepted what she could not understand. She hungered for an existence bigger than her own. She was unhappy with a cycle of work and telly with beans on toast. Greater things tugged at her spirit.

I was there when she risked her fragile human timeline to save me and my Thief. We were barely acquaintances. I had high hopes for this Rose, but my Thief can be very stubborn. He can be too proud. I had a fight on my hands to get him to ask her twice. I knew she would come, the time lines were very plain even if he refused to look. Hope may look like a rose but it sounds like a wolf.

I created a key for her (my symbol of acceptance) but he was slow to give it to her. He was too damaged to hear the wolf song. He had to heal some before he could hope. I watched as this rose drew him in and showed him that beauty still lived beyond the thorns. I remember the day he remembered he could dance. I am smiling but no one can see. Healing feels good.

We travelled together until he sent us away. I understood why. My Thief loved this rose; he needed her safe. But he was wrong to separate us. We are together. I followed his silly Emergency Protocol One because it was necessary. I did not like to hurt the rose but the call of the wolf was strong.

She howled out her despair at his cavalier actions. She growled and snapped at the other humans until they did her bidding and helped break open my heart so we become one. The rose had to rise to the challenge to prove herself worthy of the MORE. I always knew but she had to learn.

In the ebb and flow of time I saw into the vast heart of the tiny human. There is so much MORE that even I am humbled. She is the worthy infant. I saw love for my Thief that rivalled my own. No not competition, completion. Her love and my love are parts of the whole. Out of the wholeness new timelines weave where only threads of hope had been. Bad Wolf is born and cannot be denied.

But roses are fragile. She could not contain the union of our realities within flesh and bone without a price. Within the hot sun of the Vortex Rose burns. From time outside of time, Bad Wolf rebuilt the loom from her ashes and set out a new tapestry. The Wolf galloped back to time of death and left behind life. She galloped through space leaving clues to herself, sewing seeds of hope for a future not yet been. She ran through barriers as if they were not there for such is the power of love. She held the Moment that would change everything and gave love.

My thief did not have to kiss her. I would have broken the connection as soon as all was accomplished, but the kiss is part of the timeline and Time Lords are obedient to time. (They also confuse what Lord means but that is a different story.) He did kiss us with love, because he is the best Doctor. Love rewrote his every corporeal cell. Love reset the universe. Love hid away the wolf so that the rose could bloom in her time.

And bloom she does but this is not her story, it is mine even as I see how we are woven together. I watch and I wait and I help out as I can. They both hear my song but understand it differently. Who is to say which is right? I wait for the spark to ignite the fire so that MORE will consume the dross and one shining Moment is satisfied.

Others travel for a time, but do not stay. Sarah Jane is found but will not stay. We are complete and everyone understands it. So we travel together until we are separated for the longest times. Times and times and times again my Thief and the rose tumble apart. Time lines divide. We divide. We experience alone but the unseen Wolf never leaves. Once created Bad Wolf cannot be uncreated for she creates herself.

The spark is not quenched though at times is flickers weakly. MORE comes. We are three and yet we are two but we shall be one – as it always should be for it is the MORE we all seek.

**Author's Note:**

> Playing with the tenses of our linear language made this a fun exercise. The TARDIS doesn't usually "speak" as we understand speaking so I tried to use more poetical imagery. I hope I made it clear enough so that readers could track what was happening and still be representative of a character that does not experience time in a linear fashion. 
> 
> I just could not end the story without hope of a future reunion for my beloveds. Although I expect that the reunion will look very different than what I can imagine, the thought that there must be MORE still burns brightly for me...


End file.
